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Talk:The Smiling Man/@comment-29249491-20160724060425
The tone is good, the premise is intriguing, the writing is weak. And, sometimes, the writing devolves to the kind of thing that ruins a story -- "He looked completely and utterly insane. And that's a very, very scary thing to see." Superlatives suck. Utterly is one of many words internet amature writing cultures have somehow made prevalent, to a painful degree. Adverbs suck anyway, overused adverbs are worse (quickly, slowly, gently), overused superlative adverbs are shit (utterly). 'Very' is the least very word in the english language, it doesn't even have a meaning. Well, it does in the sense of "The very man!" (an exact thing) but as emphasis, it doesn't have a meaning. Using it twice doesn't help, and if you feel the need to use it twice just to bolster your adjective, then, your adjective sucks. Pick a new word. There's more, but -- you know what, fuck it, let's do this. ----- For what it is worth -- the apparant anger in the following is frustration with creepypasta as a genre more than just this specific one, but also very much because this is a good idea that if it just had been revised, instead of cockily having the rough draft thrown up for posterity, would have been good. As with other creepypasta, the "What's revision? I wrote this, it's done!" attitude just infuriates me. You get shitty writing obviously, but the writer's never get any better, which is worse. "But all of that changed in just a few minutes of one evening." -- this is just plain clumsy, and the most obvious within the first two paragraphs as far as what's wrong with them. For one thing, the preceding sentence is negated by this, but the story doesn't bear it out. Did everyone in the city get bad? No, so this sentence is a lie, and clumsily told. "It was a Wednesday, " ugh. . . this is not how you do exposition. Fucking creepypasta. Go pick up a book of short stories, show me one story that starts "I was a Tuesday" or "Christmas break ahd just started" or "It was two weeks later that". Describe the scene I don't care what the damn day was, I don't care what time it was, I don't care the park was police patrolled unless it matters (and since you don't see a cop, but don't question that, it doesn't). Moreover, you only describe what isn't there, namely people, which isn't helpful. It doesn't paint a picture. "I turned down a short side-street in order to loop back to my apartment when I first noticed him." . . . . That's not how the word 'when' works. What you meant (taken from the context of the remainder of the paragraph) is that you had just taken a turn, and you noticed a guy. What you said was that you noticed him and then turned away from him -- which would be fine, if it were what happened. Also -- calling the man 'him' (with an implied capital 'H') says something, something you just don't back up with the writing around it. For that word choice to have an impact, the story really needs to either a: Be in present tense of b: Not be in first person. "Deciding he was probably drunk, " Bad writer! Write active sentences! "I thought he might be drunk" Which reminds me, decided is an overused verb, and probably is used where might would sound better in most stories. I think might would sound better mostly because probably is over-selected. "I took my eyes off of him to cross the empty street" -- Why? It's not like you had to. The sentence implied you needed to. So why? Tell us things. "I was completely and utterly unnerved by this." It's like you want me to hit you. completely - superlative adverb, utterly- superlative adverb, unnerved - trite word man. Add to that it's passive voice. . . . this sentence could not be worse if you just randomly rearranged the constituant letters. "He didn't move. " Cheers That is a fantastic sentence! You didn't even cheapen it by saying 'did not'. "Once I had put about half a block between us, I turned away from him for a moment to watch the sidewalk in front of me. " -- And we're back to this. . . . "He started moving toward me again. He took giant, exaggerated tip-toed steps, as if he were a cartoon character sneaking up on someone." ignoring the 'as if he were' that should be 'like' (passive writing sucks dammit) -- this is the single best thing about this story, it's the imagery that makes it stick, it's why this story works, no matter how badly it is written. But even so. .. right after. . . . . "Except he was moving very, very quickly." ---- Fuck you. First, you're missing a comma, second, fuck you and your 'very's. I'm done.